in the stand that admiral mullen is in afghanistan, visiting the troops. the question they are asking, will they be paid if this default happens? let me put this plainly. if senator reid's plan passes as they pay down their domestic spending spree with the blood and sweat of our troops, the military will break. we have allowed ourselves to be distracted from the massive entitlement programs that are actually bankrupting the country. that stops here. the budget passed last night shrinks the government and, most importantly, holt's three years of neglect to our armed forces. thank you. now i would like to ask the gentleman from arizona -- i mean virginia, i do not know how that happened, the chairman of our readiness subcommittee. >> i think that this is an important issue. over the last several weeks we have heard a lot about the word compromise. i think that the american people realize that overlaid on that are two other words. we need to make sure that we are having common sense on whatever compromise that we have. we do not understand why it is the democ